John Bolton a ‘Right-Winger’ But no Label for Dep UN Sec-Gen

By: Warner Todd Huston

The Times newspaper in the UK, in typical MSM style, labels US Envoy to the UN, John Bolton, a “right-winger” while UN Deputy Secretary-General Mark Malloch Brown is just called a “former journalist” in a report about Bolton’s reply to Brown’s disparaging of the citizens of “middle America” in a speech the later made a few days before. (Times-Online)

Malloch Brown told a meeting of New York Democrats that there was â€œtoo much unchecked UN-bashing and stereotypingâ€ by “Rush Limbaugh” and “Fox News”. He also said that the role of the UN was a “mystery in Middle America” in an apparent criticism of the ability of average Americans to understand what it is the UN does or is supposed to do.

Speaking at the Centre for Policy Studies in London, Bolton pointedly rebuked Brown over his untoward remarks. â€œMark Malloch Brown has a sentence in his speech where he says the role of the UN is a mystery in Middle America,â€ Bolton said.

â€œMaybe it is fashionable in some circles to look down on Middle America, to say they donâ€™t get the complexities of the world and they donâ€™t have the benefit of continental education and they are deficient in so many ways.” Next, Bolton said, â€œIt is illegitimate for an international civil servant to criticise what he thinks are the inadequacies of citizens of a member government.”

Here is how the Times describes the two gentlemen:

Mr Bolton, a Republican right-winger, has been a leading conservative critic of the UN since serving as the assistant secretary of state for international organisations in the Administration of the first President Bush.(my emphasis in bold)

Notice the “right-winger” comment?

Mr Malloch Brown, a former journalist who founded The Economist Development Report and went on to work at a political consultancy before joining the UN system…

Notice how no such specific language is used to describe Mr. Brown’s ideology? No, apparently Mr. Brown is just a “former journalist” and all around sensible fella.

So, Bolton is an eeeevil “right-winger”, but no label for Brown?

Yet Brown is intimately linked to extreme leftist George Soros from whom Brown gets a wonderful deal on an estate home in New York for a mere $10,000 monthly “rent” — which is $2,500 a month LESS than the previous occupant, by the way. Has anyone ever heard of high class New York real estate and rental fees going DOWN before?

Further, Brown has made it a point to consult only Democrats with his US consultations over UN policy and direction even as the GOP is currently the power Party in the US.

It is amazingly blind and free of introspection for Brown to imagine that the UN is being unfairly attacked in the US for being corrupt. After the Oil-for-food scandal in which even Secretary General Annan’s own son is implicated in the theft of UN funds it is ridiculous to intimate that the UN is unfairly criticized.

There is so much wrong with the UN that many Americans believe it is beyond repair. It would be far better to create a new UNesque organization restricted to Democratic states than to try to fix this hopelessly broken mess.

There is so much wrong with the UN that it is hard to know where to start to begin the list. From some of the worst human rights offending nations being placed on UN human rights councils, to UN workers in Asia setting up brothels to service UN officials, to the oil-for-food scandal, to the general waste of the organization, to the failures to put right the Balkans after the actions in Bosnia, the UN has proven to be nothing but a mass of corruption with little, if any, benefit to the world.

Worse, it has become a circus of America bashing day in and day out to the point where it is so reflexive that it is notable when even a slightly pro-American statement is ever uttered. Still, it is heartening that US Envoy Bolton is scolding Dep. Sec-Gen. Brown over his absurd and combative statements about American citizens. Let us hope it is a sign of the eventual separation between the US and the UN.